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Simplicity - a lesson we can learn from Flappy Bird

Flappy bird flapped onto the scene and left. In it's wake, there is a tremendous lesson to be learnt.

Simplicity simply rocks!

Yes, there are tonnes of other lessons to be learnt too, but lets focus on this one point today.

It's the mantra that got Steve Jobs and Apple to great heights. It's what rocks Google at it's core. And it should be applied to your apps and games too.

Dong Nguyen (the developer of Flappy Bird) is coming up with his next "big thing", and he says that his new game will be "maintaining the simplicity of the gameplay that Flappy Bird has".

If I can give an advice today, it is make one tap games. Avoid all those level ups and stuff. Add simple social sharing features of your highscore (along with a download link to your app.. beware the clones!).

While simplicity can be abused (fart apps anyone?), using it in a gameplay or apps in a smart way really helps your app to get out to a bigger audience.

There are many more un-hardcore gamers and users out there than there are hardcore (I know, I've counted). And to reach these simple users, which provide a greater market portion, simplicity is the word of the day.

On the other hand, from the developer's perspective, simplicity will mean that you spend a lot less time on the app, and thus if it fails to fly off, you're still allright. And you can spend more time on marketing, ad placement optimisation or preferably developing even more simple games and apps.

When releasing a new app, it is understood that it will rank far down the food chain. After all, your app is new and unproven just yet.

What Google has done on the Play store is that they have given new app an opportunity to live, a chance to get to a more respectable place in the world of the unknown, the Google Play ranking algorithm.

Good looks go a long way in getting downloads for your apps. I'm a fan of looking out for beautiful app designs. I've looked at so many apps, gotten so much inspiration, but have yet to achieve anything that I can be proud of.

Blame genetics if you must. I am a developer, and although I play the guitar and love music and beautiful art and images (even tried photography once), I suck in the design area. I can give an idea, a design, but cant execute it. I'm a coder damnit!